Better Business  

'Advice firms are like tankers: the bigger they are, the harder to turn'

She adds: "Anything that didn't work, we did make changes."

For instance, they changed their back-office system, which had offered limited functionality and thus didn't work for them.

She says: "Being nimble enough and on the same wavelength meant we can could do that because it would have been wrong to have stuck with that."

But making changes is easier early on, says Jenny.

"As a startup you can change the direction you go quickly. But as you get bigger, you get more clients and it's just, I suppose, like a tanker: the bigger the boat, the harder it is to turn.

"So you want to make changes but it just takes a wee bit longer to plan them out and execute them."

For now the pair are looking for what they call "controlled growth".

"We definitely would like to have some more advisers, a bigger team, take on more clients, but you know, we want to do a good job for the client," says Jenny.

Nicola adds: "We've got lots of ideas for seminars and other areas that we know we could really push, but we want to make sure we've got the capacity in place to deal with it."

After all, "what we wanted this space for was to do client events," says Jenny.

And what a space it is - something the pair hope will see the firm through the next years of growth.

carmen.reichman@ft.com